March is starting off well with drought severity decreasing in North-Central Texas and statewide reservoir storage, as of last Thursday, up 0.9 percentage points (up 1.3 as of Monday morning). Dallas area reservoirs were up 2.6 percentage points as of Thursday (up 4.4 as of Monday morning). And more rain is expected.
Some notes from Dr. Wentzel:
· The most recent map from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows conditions as of Tuesday, March 3rd. Thanks to cool temperatures and precipitation in the past week, drought did not develop in new areas or increase in intensity in any existing drought areas of the state. The pocket of Exceptional (D4) Drought in the Dallas/Fort Worth area saw much needed improvement. Statewide, the net result was a decrease in Exceptional (D4) Drought of more than 1 percentage point. Despite that improvement, the area of the state in Moderate (D1) or worse drought was little changed, remaining at about 43 percent of the state.
· Thanks to continued beneficial precipitation in the last week (notably in North Central and East Texas), statewide conservation storage is up an additional 0.9 percentage points this week (after 0.6 percentage points last week). In the last two weeks, conservation storage is up more than 400,000 acre-feet. Current storage is more than 2 percentage points better than this time last year, but still about 17 percentage points below what is considered normal for this time of year.
· As of Thursday, March 3rd, conservation storage was up in 7, unchanged in 1, and down in 1 of 9 climate regions with reservoirs across the state. The North Central Region had the largest gain, up 1.4 percentage points, but two other regions had gains of more than ½ a percentage point (Trans Pecos and East Texas). The only region with a decrease was the Upper Coast, where reservoirs were down 0.4 percentage points.
· Conservation storage (as a percentage of capacity) increased in 11 of the 20 municipal reservoir systems that we track across the state, remained unchanged in 5, and decreased in 4. Dallas had the largest gain, up 2.6 percentage points. Fort Worth and Waco also had big gains, up 1.6 and 0.6 percentage points, respectively. All four systems that decreased (Midland-Odessa, San Angelo, Abilene and Beaumont-Port Arthur) were down 0.1 percentage points.
· Despite the encouraging start to the month, the Drought Outlook from the National Weather Service for March anticipates little change for Texas. All areas in drought are expected to remain in drought through the end of the month. A small area along the Red River that is currently free from drought is predicted to fall back into drought.
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